Art Blog

March 2012

AIPAD's gala opening built quickly to a crowded crescendo last evening. Dealers reported healthy sales on works of 19th, 20th and 21st century artists as disparate as Edward Steichen, Carleton Watkins, Irving Penn, Man Ray and Vic Muniz. It's an exhibition, where all the works are for sale. It's certainy worth a special trip into the city. The exhibition, at the 67th Street Armory in NYC runs until 6pm this Sunday.

In 1905, Leo Stein saw his first Picasso drawing at a furniture store. He bought 2 large paintings by the artist soon afterward. That Fall, Leo and Gertrude, to become the most famous collecting brother and sister of the 20th century, bought Matisse's Woman with Hat - 1905. The American, Leo Stein, then living in France with his sister Gertrude, wrote a friend of his recent purchases, "My recent accessions are unfortunately by people you never have heard of so there is no use trying to describe them. He had purchased "a work that had made everybody laugh plus 2 pictures by a young Spaniard named Picasso whom I consider a genius of great magnitude."